How to Design a Professional Business Card
Written by: Mark Van Laarhoven
Questions to ask yourself:
- Who will you be giving the cards to?(Audience)
- What you will want them to do with the card?(Purpose)
- Do you have a logo or brand design?(Recognition)
- Is the card meant to be written on?(Coating)
If you are not sure exactly how to set up your document, download our free templates and use them as a starting place, at least then you will have the correct size and guides for the amount of bleed to provide.
Make sure you are using only colours from a CMYK color palette, and that all your images are CMYK. For more info view our technical specifications, or read our Feb06 newsletter.
As for the artistic design of your card, there is no limit to what you can create; we have certainly seen some fantastic designs come through. Remember that there is no real rules about how or what your card should contain, and don't forget you can print for landscape or portrait view, or any angle for that matter. Ensure you keep any text at least 3mm from the trim edge (Margin) and any background images or colors should protrude 3mm over the trim edge (Bleed).
Effective branding can be achieved by using specific PMS colours for your corporate colour scheme, this means your cards will always be produced with consistent colour matching; it does however incur additional charges in the print process. Four colour process printing may produce some variations in print colour from batch to batch; if this is a problem for your corporate identity it is recommended that you request specific PMS colours.
Last Modified: 6th January 2006
